The crushed scroll was a knot of dread in Marcus's fist. What have I done? The question echoed in the empty, silent hallway outside Marcia's guarded door, a place that now felt more foreign to him than his own lost century.
He was an emperor who could not control his own palace. A god who could not speak to his own oracle.
The next morning, the grand strategic problems of the empire came crashing back in, merciless and absolute. He had summoned the chief treasurer to the Palatine records room, a vast, cold chamber that smelled of old parchment and decay. Senator Clavius was a grim, skeletal old man, a walking ledger of Rome's fortunes, and the numbers he brought were a death sentence.
He wasn't here to talk about winning the war. He was here to talk about affording it.
"The blockade is a catastrophe, Caesar," Clavius said, his voice as dry as the scrolls he unrolled across the table. He didn't need to elaborate. Marcus had seen the panicked reports from the grain merchants.
The old senator tapped a long, bony finger on a column of figures written in stark, red ink. The image was more terrifying than any battle map.
"The grain shipments from Egypt are completely halted. The African routes are being harassed. We cannot pay the legions on the frontier their due in wheat." He looked up, his dark eyes like pits. "We have to pay them in gold and silver coin."
Marcus felt a cold lump of ice form in his stomach. A legionary would fight for glory, but he would kill for his wages. An army paid in promises was a mutiny waiting to happen. "For how long can we sustain it?"
"At this rate," Clavius said, his voice devoid of emotion, "factoring in the hazard pay for the Germanian campaign and the cost of commissioning new ships that will likely be sunk, the entire state treasury will be empty in… ninety days."
Ninety days. Three months. The words hung in the cold air.
Marcus's mind raced. "What about the emergency reserves? The Triumphal Fund?"
Clavius gave him a thin, joyless smile. "Caesar, with all due respect, you spent the Triumphal Fund on the grain dole to win over the people. The figures I am showing you are the emergency reserves."
The war now had a hard deadline. A ticking clock.
His guerrilla mission in the Alps, his brilliant plan to buy time, was now almost useless. He didn't have months to bleed Valerius Celsus. He had ninety days to stop him completely, or the Roman economy would collapse, his armies would revolt, and the empire would simply cease to exist.
He returned to his study a caged animal, the treasurer's grim pronouncements echoing in his mind. He paced the mosaic floors, a prisoner of his own impossible circumstances. He could not fight Sextus Pompey's navy and Valerius Celsus's army at the same time. It was a classic strategic trap, and he had walked right into it. He had to neutralize one of them. Fast.
JARVIS, he thought, a desperate plea. Run scenarios. Naval engagement with Sextus Pompey.
ANALYZING, the AI's voice replied in his mind. Sextus commands a veteran fleet in home waters. Roman naval assets are scattered and outdated. Probability of a decisive Roman victory within the ninety-day window: 3.7%.
Useless. He needed another way. A solution outside the box. A move so insane, so completely illogical, that no one would ever see it coming.
JARVIS, what is the one thing our enemies have in common?
QUERY: Ambiguous.
No, it's not, Marcus countered, a wild idea sparking in the darkness. They both define themselves in opposition to Rome. But what if one of them hates the other more than they hate me?
ANALYZING HISTORICAL ANIMOSITY: SEXTUS POMPEY VS. PARTHIAN EMPIRE. The AI paused for a fraction of a second. DATA FOUND. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Sextus Pompey's father, led successful and humiliating campaigns in the East, conquering territories claimed by Parthia. Residual political animosity is rated as extremely high.
It was a long shot. A wild, desperate gamble. But it was the only move he had left.
He would make a deal with the devil.
That night, under the cloak of secrecy, the Parthian ambassador was ushered into Marcus's private study. Phraates IV entered not with the cautious deference of a subject, but with the smug, self-satisfied air of a vulture circling a dying beast.
"Caesar," he said, his bow a perfect, mocking gesture. "You honor me with this late-night summons. I hear you are having… difficulties at sea."
Marcus dispensed with the pleasantries. He got straight to the point. "You hate Rome, Phraates. I understand that. But there is someone you hate more."
Phraates raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"You hate the name Pompey," Marcus stated, his voice flat and cold. "The ghost of Pompey the Great has haunted your people for a hundred years. He conquered your ancestors. He humiliated your kings. And now his last living son, a pirate with delusions of grandeur, has named himself King of the Seas. An insult to your pride. An obstacle to your ambition."
Phraates's smug smile tightened. Marcus had found a nerve.
"And right now," Marcus continued, pressing his advantage, "this ghost is blocking the very sea lanes you will need for the trade route I offered you. He is in your way as much as he is in mine."
He let the words sink in, then he laid his insane proposal on the table.
"I will give you the plans for our best warships. I will give you the master shipwrights from our naval yards. I will give you the gold to build a modern navy—your own navy—a fleet capable of challenging Rome itself for dominance of the Mediterranean."
Phraates stared at him, his mask of sophistication finally cracking. He was utterly speechless.
"All I ask in return," Marcus said, his voice a low, hypnotic whisper, "is that the first fleet you build sails under a Roman flag, for a single Roman purpose. Help me crush Sextus Pompey. Sweep his pirate kingdom from the sea. And in return, I will give you the weapon you need to one day try and crush me."
It was a suicidal gambit, a deal born of pure desperation. He was offering to arm his greatest rival, to give them the one weapon they had always lacked, all for the desperate, short-term hope that they would solve his immediate problem.
In her gilded prison, Marcia knew she was running out of time. Lucilla was a masterful jailer. She now attended to Marcia every day, a picture of pious devotion, interpreting her every word and need for the watchful zealots. Marcia's request for a book became a divine need for silent meditation. Her desire for a walk in the gardens became a holy requirement for seclusion, lest her spirit be tainted by the faithless.
She had to break the cycle. She needed a link to the outside world.
Her chance came with the evening meal. She knew her food was always tasted by one of Lycomedes's guards. She would use their diligence as her weapon.
Lucilla and Lycomedes were both present, watching as a guard took a ceremonial bite from each dish. Marcia calmly picked up a simple, perfect fig from a bowl of fruit. She took a bite.
Halfway through, she stopped. Her eyes went wide, not with feigned prophecy, but with a new, terrifying performance of agony.
"No…" she gasped, clutching her throat. "The serpent's venom! Not a dagger… a slow poison! In the very food of the palace!"
She lurched forward and retched violently, forcing the contents of her stomach onto the marble floor.
It was pure chaos. Lycomedes let out a roar of rage, his hand flying to his sword. If the Oracle could be poisoned, his guards were failures. He rounded on the food taster, who had also eaten a fig and whose face had turned the color of old parchment with sheer terror. Lucilla was, for the first time, caught completely off guard, her perfect control of the situation shattered by this sudden, visceral crisis.
Through shuddering, gasping breaths, Marcia made her move. "No more palace food!" she cried, her voice weak but imperious. "The earth itself is tainted here! I need a physician! A true healer! A neutral one, from outside this viper's nest! Bring me one of Galen's students! Now!"
She was using their greatest fear—an invisible threat to their Oracle—to demand an outside contact. A stranger. A potential ally. A chance.
Phraates stared at Marcus, the initial shock in his eyes giving way to a slow, dawning appreciation for the sheer, magnificent audacity of the Emperor's gambit. A predatory smile, the first genuine smile Marcus had ever seen from him, spread across his face.
"You would give your greatest enemy the sword that will one day be pointed at your own throat, Caesar?" he asked, his voice a purr of delighted disbelief.
Marcus met his gaze without flinching, his face a mask of cold, hard resolve.
"I would."
The silence in the room stretched, thick with the weight of empires. Phraates's dark eyes gleamed, seeing a thousand new possibilities, a thousand new paths to power opening before him. He leaned forward, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.
"Intriguing."